Shrub < 5 m.
Stem: bark bright gray, brown, or red; twigs brown, gray, or red, glabrous, tomentose, or hairs of 2 lengths; terminal bud glabrous to velvety.
Leaf: generally evergreen; petiole 3–10 mm; blade 20–100 mm, elliptic to ovate, ± leathery, ± glabrous to tomentose, base acute to rounded, tip truncate to acute or mucronate, margin entire to toothed, ± rolled under or not, veins generally prominent.
Inflorescence: 5–60-flowered; pedicel < 20 mm.
Flower: hypanthium 1–2 mm wide.
Fruit: generally 2-stoned, 10–15 mm, black.
[Rhamnus californica Eschsch.]
Subspecies intergrade in intermediate habitats.
[Online Interchange]Unabridged note: Frangula californica grows throughout most of California and the subspecies are somewhat separated geographically, but intermediates and variants in California exist between all the subspecies except subsp. ursina (C.B. Wolf 1938). In California, Frangula californica subsp. ursina occurs only in San Bernardino Co., Frangula californica subsp. californica is the most coastal, growing from the western Klamath Mountains south to Agua Tibia Mtn in southern California., Frangula californica subsp. occidentalis is characteristic of mafic and ultramafic substrates in northwest California; plants on other substrates approach Frangula californica subsp. californica, but leaf blades are equally green (not yellow-green) on both surfaces. Wolf reported that "from San Francisco Bay region to Santa Barbara Co. is a form of Rhamnus californica in which the leaves are whitened beneath, but upon examination show pubescence much shorter than that in Rhamnus tomentella. In older leaves it often disappears. This form is very abundant". Plants in Los Angeles and Orange counties have leaf blades with sparse (not dense) tomentum and a few long hairs beneath as in Frangula californica subsp. cuspidata. Intermediates between Frangula californica subsp. crassifolia and Frangula californica subsp. tomentella are rare in northern California, but many plants in San Diego Co. "have leaves narrowly to broadly elliptical and many would pass for Frangula californica subsp. crassifolia in the Inner Coast Range." He considered these plants variants of Frangula californica subsp. tomentella. Some plants in southern Oregon vary in leaves from those of Frangula californica subsp. occidentalis. The Frangula californica complex needs study using modern techniques.

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(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurence).